1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a system for supervising the status of processing performed in a data processing apparatus which receives information and data-processes the thus received information. More particularly, the present invention relates to a supervisory system for the data processing apparatus of a knowledge information processing apparatus type using a knowledge base. Furthermore, the present invention relates to a system having a function of reproducing the inner status of the processing apparatus which is the status at an optional time with supervising the data processing apparatus, the inner status being changed in accordance with the operation applied to the system.
2. Prior Art
Recently, attempts of combining an expert system with a conventional information system have been made in order to utilize present software sources and saving labor taken place at the time of manual data input. For example, an attempt of combining an expert system and a CAD system has been made. The knowledge base system must have a knowledge of the operation of the object information-processing system in addition to the knowledge of solving usual problems.
However, if a sole knowledge base holds all of knowledge including that of solving usual problems and the operation of the information processing system and the like necessary to solve the subject problem, the knowledge base is excessively enlarged. As a result, the management of the knowledge base becomes difficult and the inference speed of the knowledge base is inevitably lowered. It might therefore be considered feasible to employ a structure arranged in such a manner that the knowledge is divided into sections to correspond to each of the problems so as to constitute each of the thus divided knowledge as an independent expert system. In this case, the knowledge base must have a knowledge of the operation of the object information-processing system and the like, causing its efficiency to be lowered.
It might be therefore be considered feasible to employ a structure arranged in such a manner that knowledge about the operations of the object information-processing system or the like are unified so as to be distinguished from knowledge of solving usual problems. It leads to a fact that the knowledge base can be easily managed and its efficiency is improved.
However, it is difficult for an expert system to completely solve a complicated design or programming problem such as a design of a CAD or linear programming. An operator must directly intervene in the system for the purpose of directing operating the object system after the execution or interruption of one operation of the expert system.
In the case that the interventions as described above has been made, data and the status of the object system have sometimes been changed when the expert system is restarted after the intervention of the operator. Therefore, a problem arises in that the data and the status of the object system held by the expert system and the actual data and the status after the change cannot be consistent with one another. Therefore, the data and the status must be reconstituted between the object system and the expert system. It leads a problem in that an operator cannot easily freely intervene in the system. An object of the present invention is addressed to overcome the problem of this type.
On the other hand, as a data processing apparatus becomes more complicated and its processing becomes thereby more advanced, the status reproduction at debugging and the status restoration after malfuction is complicated. Hitherto, supervisory methods employed in systems for supervising the data processing apparatuses of the type described above have been substantially classified as follows, in each of which only a status of the processing apparatus at a certain point or a status in an extremely short period including the certain point is always handled, and then operations arranged for the following methods are conducted:
(1) A method arranged in such a manner that the status at the present time and several statuses just prior the present time are saved and the just-prior operation can be cancelled by switching the thus saved statuses.
(2) A method arranged in such a manner that statuses expected to be necessary in the future are externally saved by an operator by design when the status is realized. When the status thus saved becomes necessary to be reproduced, it is searched from the saved statuses so as to be reproduced.
(3) A method arranged in such a manner that the operations from the processing start is recorded. When the operation which has been terminated is restarted due to the problem end, the operations thus recorded are executed again from the first portion of the record. Thus, the statuses just prior the trouble generation is reproduced.
However, according to the above-described method (1), only several just-prior statuses from present time are saved. Therefore, only the just-prior statuses can be reproduced.
According to the above-described conventional method (2), a user must save the statuses in an external device by making a backup or the like, causing a complicated task to be performed. Furthermore, since the statuses which have not been saved cannot be reproduced, the status saving must be conducted frequently. Therefore, the method (2) involves a disadvantage in that a large volume of external storage must be provided. In the case where a system whose subject is arranged to be the status in which its change is small, a method arranged in such a manner that the difference between the statuses is obtained and saved for the purpose of reducing the amount of storage can be employed. However, the method of this type cannot effectively act in a processing apparatus in which a great status change is involved. Furthermore, a more critical disadvantage than the problem in terms of the amount of the storage arises in that it is impossible to perfectly predict all of the statuses which will be necessary in the future.
Although the conventional method (3) can be effectively used as a method performed by an editor at the time of the trouble end, it involves a disadvantage in that its execution time for a processing is too long. Furthermore, it is not suitable for uses in a system such as a CAD whose amount of data to be calculated for one operation is great.
The method (2) involves a disadvantage in that the saved statuses are in the form of extremely small sections. Furthermore, a user must manage all of the relationships among the statuses in addition to the time sequential relationships (for example, the version of the status) and the causal relationships. Therefore, the user must conduct an additional complicated task. Furthermore, in the case of the method (1), only statuses within a certain period prior to the present time actually exist. Also in the case of the method (2), only the first and the final statuses exist.